3 Ohio River spans from Indiana to Louisville will get electronic tolls

Motorists will pay electronic tolls to use three Ohio River bridges connecting southern Indiana with the Louisville, Ky., area under a plan developers presented Tuesday.

Instead of using toll plazas where workers collect cash from motorists, the bridges will use tolling gantries that rely on electronic transponders and video cameras, the Ohio River Bridges Project announced.

Frequent commuters will be issued electronic transponders and be able to pre-pay into accounts from which tolls will be automatically deducted when the vehicle passes through a gantry, the News and Tribune reported.

Vehicles without transponders will be billed at the address to which the vehicle is registered as determined by license plate numbers captured by video cameras.

Rates haven’t been determined but are expected to be set at a Sept. 5 meeting of the Ohio River Bridges Project Tolling Body. Proposed rates call for a $1 charge for frequent commuters, $2 for passenger vehicles without transponders, $5 for box trucks and panel vans, and $10 for semi-trucks and tractor-trailers, the project said.

Motorists will pay tolls to use the existing Kennedy Bridge and a new I-65 bridge to be built between Louisville and Jeffersonville and a new East End Bridge between Utica and Prospect, Ky.

Indiana is overseeing construction of the East End Bridge. Kentucky is handling construction of the downtown bridge. Both are scheduled to open in 2016.